Program Notes

Salish Phantoms was written for the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America’s chamber music workshop. The piece unintentionally became a companion piece to “Falling Buffalos”, a piece I wrote for solo flute inspired by the David Wojnarowicz photograph of the same name. In June 2021, I visited Washington for the first time and became fascinated with the region’s tradition of reverence for whales, particularly the orca. In both indigenous and colonial cultures present along the Olympic coast, this creature is represented as though it is a mythical beast of local legend, yet it is as real as the elk on the mountainsides and the banana slugs in the rainforests. Some may call it the “killer whale”, others “qalq̕ aləx̌ ičz” or “kaałin”, but they all refer to the same elusive giant that dwells beneath the freezing waters. Whatever one may refer to the creature, I see its true beauty in its phantom-like nature. A small boat can be completely still on the surface of the Salish Sea, completely unaware that a ten-thousand-pound mammal is passing by just a few feet beneath. Pods of orca whales communicate with each other through echolocation, a series of clicking sounds. Whales in the baleen group, such as humpback whales, are observed to communicate using complex “songs”, beautifully haunting melodies traveling through deep blue vastness. These sounds are the loudest made by any animals in the world and can permanently damage human ears if heard too close.

The sounds heard in Salish Phantoms are intended to mimic whale sounds but are not exclusive to one particular species. The collection of noise is what I imagine lurks beneath the waters of the Pacific Northwest—a symphony that can be both chilling and mesmerizing.